


Impasse

by orphan_account



Category: Kushiel's Legacy - Jacqueline Carey
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-23
Updated: 2011-12-23
Packaged: 2017-10-27 21:59:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/300494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>It's poetic, the </i>waste, <i>like destroying a good dress in one's eagerness and watching it cascade to the floor, or trampling a flower underfoot.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Impasse

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hereticalvision](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hereticalvision/gifts).



> Okay, so, you know how in _Kushiel's Dart_ the text sorta discreetly looks away from whatever Melisande did to Phèdre before selling her and Joscelin off to the Skaldi?
> 
>  _Yep._

They've come to an impasse, she and Phèdre.

Any more, and Melisande will send her off into unconsciousness, spoiling all of her hard work thus far; any less, and she'll do the same. She's undone the row of buttons down the Phèdre's spine and applied persuasion to her back, nothing more. Physical torment is, after all, not the way to manage this, is _never_ the way to manage anything with an anguisette. The past half-hour has been sheer self-indulgence, and she can tell herself that it's all build-up, hurting and arousing her for the sake of the mind-game to come -- but for all of the faults Melisande can acknowledge in herself -- cruelty, malice, vanity -- self-deception is not among them

 _This is messy work, Melisande Shahrizai._ Anafiel Delaunay would be laughing at her from beyond whatever grave she'll have him dropped into on the morrow.

She's not half so calm as she'd like Phèdre to think. Her heart beats in her chest like war drums, reverberates through her neck and ears and lower, between her legs. Melisande takes a deep breath to steady herself, then pulls a pliant Phèdre up to seated, that Melisande might look her in the eyes. Phèdre's breathing is steady and even, and she helps Melisande drag her prone form up -- the drug has almost worn off, then.

"Perhaps we ought to take a break," Melisande says, shoving Phèdre onto the floor. Phèdre catches herself on her hands and knees and stays there, a cornered animal who's just given herself away to the watchful hawk. "There, there," she goes on. She strokes her hand over the marque on Phèdre's back, then makes her kneel. "It's been worn off for the past ten minutes, hasn't it? You needn't answer me; I only want to hear one thing from you."

The buttons are tiny, unrounded pearls, smooth and irregular under Melisande's fingers as she does the dress up. A modicum of dignity restored, but only by her sufferance, and Phèdre shivers. "If I don't tell you," Phèdre says, finally, "then what?"

"I haven't yet decided," Melisande lies -- to the north with her anguisette, to warm some barbarian chieftain's bed. She indulges herself, once again: "I could keep you at my estate, perhaps -- a room with cushions and a single window with drapes you could tear, so that you could attempt to escape. Would you like that?" No response, and the frightened look in Phèdre's eyes has gone flinty, as though she wants to spit in Melisande's face and kiss her, all at the same time. "All the books you could read, all the delicacies you could eat. The most beautiful dresses, maids to arrange your pretty hair for me."

It's poetic, the _waste,_ like destroying a good dress in one's eagerness and watching it cascade to the floor, or trampling a flower underfoot. "I'd give you just enough paper and ink to attempt to smuggle letters out."

"That you'll intercept, and punish me for," says Phèdre. Melisande puts two fingers over Phèdre's lips, and she opens her mouth to take them in. It's far more effective than any gag.

"And in the adjoining room, there would be" -- she's never thought this far -- "a single exposed beam. A bit of rope. And a mahogany stand, with one flechette on it."

She withdraws her fingers, and Phèdre says, "Is that all?"

"I've been to Valerian House," says Melisande, "I've paid a pretty penny for their best adepts. None of them suffer as exquisitely as you do, even with -- "

"Implements." If Phèdre weren't on her knees, she would have been rising up to her full height. "But you reduced me with nothing but a leash and your grip in my hair."

This is Delaunay's creature through and through, but it takes more than flattery to throw Melisande off her path. Perhaps in ten years, Phèdre will be a match for her, should she survive that long. " _Hyacinthe_ is a lovely name, don't you think? It's never struck me until now. Do you ever tell him about your assignations, does he know that his name is your signale?"

Phèdre blushes, and prettily. "You know that you're the only one who's ever made me give it."

"I suggested that you give it."

" _Suggested_."

"It's my secret, and yours." Trying to distract her by making her fall into reminiscence, He made her great, and Melisande isn't sure whether she could have made her glorious. "Unless you _want_ the realm to know? Melisande Shahrizai made Phèdre no Delaunay crawl and beg."

"A great many people have made me crawl and beg; I understand that they paid a great deal for the privilege."

"I _reduced_ you." She says it into Phèdre's ear, and Phèdre shudders away from the touch of Melisande's lips, even as there must be something in her that wants to strain towards Melisande, toward what only Melisande can give her.

"You did." A gorgeous quaver in her voice. "I could lie -- to make you stop."

"I would keep you alive until I verified that what you told me was true, my dear," says Melisande. "And if the information was bad -- well, then we would have to do this all over again, wouldn't we? And what a shame that would be." She strokes the back of her hand over Phèdre's cheek, thinks very hard about dragging her to her feet, following the motion with her lips, then having her on the table. Phèdre turns her head into the touch, kisses each of the rings on her fingers, and Melisande cannot for the life of her tell whether it's calculated.

When Phèdre kisses the palm of her hand, she knows that it is. But she doesn't hit her again. She takes a long step back to watch Phèdre yearn after her.

"I've been a terrible host, you must be parched," says Melisande. It breaks the spell; this is an interrogation, she knows better than to succumb to temptation. She makes a grand show of pouring a cup of the drugged tea. By now, it's gone cold, and the porcelain is frigid in her hands. "I imagine you'll feel less guilty if you can't struggle."

Phèdre's eyes go wide, and Melisande doesn't understand why until -- Joscelin. Joscelin Verreuil, slumped over the table.

 _Oh,_ she thinks, _oh, perfection_.

Melisande sets the cup down on the saucer with a deliberate _clink_. "What have we here? Why, I'd forgotten all about your Cassiline. How hasty of me."

For the first time in the evening, there's _real_ panic in Phèdre's eyes -- true terror -- and it's the most beautiful thing Melisande has ever seen. "Don't hurt him," she says. Not _I'll tell you whatever you wish_. They'll get there.

"Or?" Melisande says. "I can do whatever I want to you? Perhaps I should wake him up, perhaps I should make him watch." Phèdre's jaw shifts. She's biting the inside of her cheek. It's sweet, the way she doesn't want to betray herself, as though it would matter -- as though Melisande can't read her like a book.. "Perhaps I should make him help. You want him, don't you? And unless he's blind -- surely, he wants you, as well. Why, it would nearly be a kindness."

Melisande lifts Joscelin up by his hair and examines his face, looking very deliberately between him and Phèdre. A beautiful face, without a doubt. She doesn't want to ruin it, though the Skaldi have no reputation as boy-lovers. "Cassilines are chaste," she says. "And the whole world sighs with the loss, though I'm sure you've never had a clumsy lover. He'd hurt you, and loathe himself for it."

"He already loathes himself," Phèdre chokes.

"I'd tell him what to do, you see." Melisande strokes his hair, the way she would Phèdre's, then sets his head back down on the table."And isn't he so good at taking orders."

The tiny, horrified sound Phèdre makes is worth a hundred pleas for mercy.

She won't do it, of course. It would be a sin against Naamah and Kushiel both, and the sooner Phèdre remembers that the sooner she'll cease to be afraid. Very deliberately, very slowly, Melisande takes up Phèdre's sangoire cloak from the back of the chair and folds it, to use it as a pillow for dear Joscelin's head.

"Now," she says, picking up the cup of tea. "I wager that a half a cup of this will leave you awake. I think it's time you told me Quintilius Rousse's message, don't you? Shall we begin again?"

**Author's Note:**

>  _Don't worry, my dear, I'd no more kill you than I'd destroy a priceless fresco or a vase," she had said, somewhere beyond my failing vision. "But you know too much, and I can't afford the risk of keeping you here. It may not be much, but believe me when I say I'm giving you the best chance I can to stay alive. I'll even leave you the Cassiline, and pray he does a better job protecting you than he's done so far." Her fingers, twining in my hair, cruel and sweet. "When it's over, if you live, I'll find you. That much, I promise, Phedre."_


End file.
